##issue.issue##

##issue.vol## 10 ##issue.no## 2 (2021): Special Issue on Gender I

Motherhood, Career Development and Modernization: Experiences of Early Post-Colonial Tanzanian Women

https://doi.org/10.56279/jhss.v10i2.78
Samwel Mhajida

Corresponding Author(s) : Samwel Mhajida

mhajida@yahoo.com

Journal of Humanities & Social Science (JHSS), ##issue.vol## 10 ##issue.no## 2 (2021): Special Issue on Gender I

##article.abstract##

This paper is about the evolution of early post-colonial women in Tanganyika and the
dilemma they encountered in balancing between family obligations and growing up in
professional career. To understand such contradicting options, the paper situates the
discussion from the perspectives of women’s narratives gathered from the printed media of
the early 1960s to mi-1960s. The paper uses interviews gathered during this time by media
specialists, newspaper columnists, and fans of women’s life histories who wrote stories and
narratives of young women of Tanganyika. Their target groups were middle-class women:
teachers, secretaries, wives of renowned politicians, business women and social activists.
Such interviews covered wide career areas and livelihood in general: fashion, professional
life, hobbies, modelling, education, home life, child care and politics. The efforts of these
women enthusiasts to try to search for a modern woman in a post-colonial setting unveiled
complex discussions about their personal journeys towards modernity, their worries, their
interactions, and their internationality. The interviewed women were educated,
internationalist, ambitious, and positively prepared to embrace opportunities and challenges
that the new nation was bringing about. The stories of these women help to address
contemporary issues that restrain women from reaching their career choices. The paper
concludes by asserting that as far as women are concerned, the option between motherhood
and career development will remain critical until when men agree to share the burden of
taking care of children, and the home in general.

##journal.references##
  1. Angerman, A. & G. Binnema, (eds.). 1989. Current Issues in Women’s History. London: Routledge.
  2. Babou, C.A. 2010. Decolonization or National Liberation: Debating the End of British Colonial Rule
  3. in Africa. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,632: 50–52.
  4. Bradford, H. 1996. Women, Gender and Colonialism: Rethinking the History of the British Cape
  5. Colony and Its Frontier Zones, C. 1806–70, Journal of African History, 37(3): 351–370.
  6. Bryceson, D. F. 1980.The Proletarianization of Women in Tanzania. Review of African Political
  7. Economy, No. 17.
  8. Cooper, F. 2002. Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  9. —. 2005. Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. California: University of California Press.
  10. Digby, A. 2005.Early Black Doctors in South Africa. The Journal of African History, 46(3), 427–454.
  11. Eckert, A. 2004. Regulating the Social: Social Security, Social Welfare and the State in Late Colonial
  12. Tanzania. Journal of African History, 45(3): 467–489.
  13. Frankema, E.H.P. 2012. the Origins of Formal Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Was British Rule
  14. More Benign? European Review of Economic History, 16(4): 335–355.
  15. Geiger, S. 1987. Women in Nationalist Struggle: TANU Activists in Dar es Salaam. International Journal
  16. of African Historical Studies, 20(1),1–26.
  17. —. 1996. Tanganyikan Nationalism as ‘Women’s Work’: Life Histories, Collective Biography and
  18. Changing Historiography. Journal of African History, 37(3): 465–478.
  19. Gregory, S. T. 2001. Black Faculty Women in the Academy: History, Status & Future. Journal of Negro
  20. Education, 70(3): 124–138.
  21. Hepple, A. 1969. South Africa Workers Under Apartheid. An International Défense Aid Fund
  22. Pamphlet.
  23. Hodgson, D. L. 1999. Pastoralism, Patriarchy and History: Changing Gender Relations Among Maasai
  24. in Tanganyika, 1890–1940. Journal of African History, 40(1): 41–65.
  25. Hodgson, D. L. & S. Mccurdy. 1996. Wayward Wives, Misfit Mothers & Disobedient Daughters:
  26. Wicked Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa. Canadian Journal of African Studies
  27. / Revue Canadienne Des Études Africaines, 30(1): 1–9.
  28. Itandala, B. 2011, Personal Interview With the Author, Iringa, Tanzania.
  29. Jennings, M. 2003. We Must Run While Others Walk: Popular Participation and Development Crisis
  30. in Tanzania. 1961–1969. Journal of Modern African Studies, 41(2):163–187.
  31. Kimambo, I.N. 2008, Personal Interview, Dar es Salaam.
  32. Kinser, E.K. 2010. Motherhood and Feminism. California: Seal Press.
  33. Koponen, J. 2018. Maendeleo: From Colonial to Post-Colonial Development in Tanzania. Tanzania
  34. Zamani: A Journal of History Research and Writing, 10(1): 1–53.
  35. Lal, P. 2012. Self-Reliance and the State: The Multiple Meanings of Development in Early PostColonial Tanzania, Africa. Journal of the International African Institute, 82(2): 212–234.
  36. Lerner, G. 1975. Placing Women in History: Definitions and Challenges. Feminist Studies,3(1/2½): 5–14.
  37. Lonsdale, J. 1968. The Tanzanian Experiment. African Affairs, 67(269): 330–344.
  38. Makulilo, A. B. 2012. The Fallacy of De Facto Independent Candidacy in Tanzania: A Rejoinder.
  39. Central European University Political Science Journal, 7(2): 196–213.
  40. Mbilinyi, M. J. 1972. The State of Women in Tanzania. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 6(2): 371–377.
  41. Musisi, N. 2014. Gender and Sexuality in African History: A Personal Reflection. Journal of African
  42. History, 55(3): 303–315.
  43. Peter, C.M. 2000. Constitutional Making in Tanzania: The Role of the People in the Process. A paper
  44. presented at the University of Dar es Salaam, August 2000: 6–8.
  45. Pritchard, A.C. 2013. ‘Let Us Swim in the Pool of Love’, Love Letters and Discourse of Community
  46. Composition in the Twentieth Century Tanzania. Journal of African History, 54(1): 103–122.
  47. Priya, L. 2018. Decolonization and the Gendered Politics: Labour in South-Eastern Africa, In: Stephen
  48. J. Macekura & Erez Manela (eds.). The Development Century: A Global History. Cambridge:
  49. Cambridge University Press: 172–193.
  50. Talton, B. 2012. Introduction: 1960s Africa in Historical Perspective. Journal of Black Studies, 43(1): 4–6.
  51. Tanganyika Standard. 1961. Tanganyika Takes the Last But One Step to Independence, Ministers
  52. Sworn in as First Cabinet. May 2nd 1961.
Read More
##article.author_biographies_not_available##

##submission.howToCite##

Motherhood, Career Development and Modernization: Experiences of Early Post-Colonial Tanzanian Women. (2021). Journal of Humanities & Social Science (JHSS), 10(2). https://doi.org/10.56279/jhss.v10i2.78
##article.download##

##plugins.generic.recommendBySimilarity.heading##

##plugins.generic.recommendBySimilarity.advancedSearchIntro##